Thoughts, thoughts, and thoughts

postdoc life

I have been re-reading a book, Becoming an academic writer by Patricia Goodson (2013). I read this book, (strictly to say, I skimmed through this book), during my PHD program as an assignment from one of the qualitative research methodology courses. We only had about 5 minutes discussion about this book every class, so when I was swamped with catching up all the reading materials, I skimmed this book, even though I thought this book would be very beneficial to read as a graduate student who was on the beginning stage of academia.

As a postdoc, numbers of works to be accomplished per day has been increased: writing a new grant proposal, managing projects, producing instructional materials, co-instructing a graduate class, design next semester’s class, and writing and revising manuscripts, and more. Sometimes I found myself behind in writing manuscripts and that felt me very annoyed and frustrated and even depressed my everyday life. So, I picked up this book as a refresher for my writing habits. And so far, the book has helped me to reflect my (turns out to be) bad writing habits and excuse and provide some solutions.

My common excuse 1. Sometimes, I have a day or days without having writing time.

According to the author, this may cause because I don’t see myself as a writer.

However, for people in academics, we write for a living, whether we like it or not, whether we want to or not. And like gardening tools, which need to be constantly used to prevent deterioration or rust. We need to see ourselves as writers having writer attitudes, managing the contingencies, and practice for it. Because I am a professional writer.

My common excuse 2. I don’t have time to write today.

Low productivity and struggles with writing have to do with how academics view themselves and their work. If they do not see themselves as writers, their writing becomes relegated to whenever they have enough time. Enough time never happens spontaneously, so they seldom write.

Research examining productive faculty’s habits consistently points to scheduled and protected writing time as a key element for success.

The author mentioned that writing time is not to be found but to be created. None of us can ever find time because we look for extra time. But those extra time rarely can be found. We need to purposefully CREATE and PROTECT time to write.

She quotes,

“Prolific academics create writing time where none exists and then carefully protect it from intrusion (Johnson & Mullen (2007).”

Some people believe that they have a dream and they are doing their best to make it happen. However, having dreams and having greed or desires is different.

A person, who has a dream (or dreams), keeps doing something new to improve present with passion to achieve a long-term goal. A person with a dream do not hesitate to expand knowledge, skills, or strategies with a variety of experiences. Even though the usefulness or the benefits of having new experiences are uncertain, people with a dream, invests their time and efforts on the present for the future. Because of the uncertainty, people with dreams keep exploring new things to know more. The more you know, the more you see.

However, a person, who believes that they have a dream but tends to wish to achieve without investing much on the present, is who has greed and shortsighted desire. They tend to hesitate to explore new fields, skills, or strategies when the immediate benefit is uncertain. Because of the uncertainty, people who confuse desire with dream, limit the investment on the future captured by myopic view.

Collaborative research is doing a research with common research inquiries and putting equal amount of knowledge and efforts on the whole process of the research to create research synergies.

For my opinion, I think for collaborative research, researchers should have gone through following process.

First, researchers should have common research inquiries. Not even research questions, but I think, especially in social science areas, there should be commonalities in questions about the phenomena or beliefs about the phenomena between researchers. And the implications of the study? The answer for the question, “Why do you want to study this topic/area?” should have matched to each other.

Second, once research inquiries are set up, researchers should establish research questions. Even researchers found some commonalities between their research inquiries, they might think different ways to explore the phenomena. “What exactly do you want to know among your inquiries?”

Third, think about the methodology for the study. How do researchers would like to explore the phenomena? Qualitatively or quantitatively or both? By answering this question, researchers may have more clear ideas about what they want to study. Or, they may find the gap between their purpose of the study. Once (still, potential, though) research questions established, research questions should be revised to accordance with methodology.

For researchers in social science areas, I believe writing an IRB helps to go through the three steps that I’ve introduced above. In the IRB application, research questions, methodologies, and implication (or possible risks that may derive from the study) should clearly stated. IRB asks detailed and clear ideas about the research plan: analysis plan, recruiting participants plan, how to ask their permissions to participate in the study, etc. So, writing up research design process will give researchers chances to have enough discussion about the research directions and plans.

If there is a researcher who wish to join after getting IRB or after other researchers already set-up the research design, the new researcher should have clear ideas why his or her research interests bring him/her to join the existing/ongoing research project. Without those concepts, I don’t think it is a collaborative research but social loafing behaviors.

So..I am in an academic field and to write and publish an academic paper is critical for us to develop our capabilities and career. There are tons of books, information, advice regarding how to publish papers because our lives sometimes described as “publish or perish” lives.

Today, I am going to write down specific to-do-list based on what I learned from others’ advice.

1. define the purpose of publication.

Am I writing to make a difference or impact world? to develop a profile in our field?

2. Know colleagues or competitors and journals

Research other researchers in the field. where they have published recently?

3. Analyze structure and type of the paper and choose two role model papers and cite them.

4. Create very detailed outline starting with two sentences: an opening and an ending sentence

Use verbs that will define purpose of each section: to summarize, overview, critique, define, introduce, conclude, etc.

5. Set specific writing sub-goals before and after writing with asking one simple question for five minutes

Question: What have you done with this writing/publication and what do you want to do in the long, mid, and short term ?

Before: not the deadline but like “my next writing goal is to (verb) summarize and critique twelve articles for the (section) literature review section in (length) 800 words on (when) Tuesday between (Time) 9am and 10:30”

After: On Thursday from 10 AM 11AM, I will draft the conclusion section in 500 words.”

6. Use collaborative writing

Having a writing buddy or a writing group is recommended when you are in a very busy life schedules. Block the Internet access and phone and just write.

It seems like UVA has several supporting programs for postdoc by The Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs. I searched for the orientation program and found they are providing the orientation monthly. For Fall 2015, it will be held in 9/24, 1015, and 12/10. Registration is required before attending the orientation (OT).

More information can be found here: http://postdoc.virginia.edu/ including useful resources for postdoc. (They also have a section for international postdoc.) I am planning to attend September OT, register to the listserv, and attending Postdoc Lunch and Learn series, if it will be hosted this coming Fall, 2015. Currently, there is only information for Fall 2014.

Postdoctoral Fellow or Research Associate?

For me, it was useful to know the difference between postdoc fellow and postdoc research associate. According to the website, postdoc fellow is the one who is funded through external grant foundations, such as NSF or NIH. Postdoc research associate is the one who are affiliated with the university as employees. The source of funds can be the university or both university and external funding institution. As I am working on mainly for a NSF grant and probably for other grants as well, I am categorized as postdoctoral research associate.